The filmmaker is heavily researching a sci-fi movie for this next project and won't rule out an Ice Cube collaboration: "How about 'Are We There Yet? The Mars Edition' with Neil deGrasse Tyson as a guest star."

A version of this story first appeared in the Aug. 21 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. To receive the magazine, click here to subscribe.

After tackling Straight Outta Compton, director F. Gary Gray is ready to head straight into … the cosmos? "I'm really, really heavily researching a sci-fi movie," said Gray. While finishing Compton in July, Gray spent his scant downtime checking out the NASA New Horizons spacecraft's Pluto images. "I have a huge telescope and I stargaze. I marvel when I study the moon and think of stories about colonizing Mars," says the Cosmos addict.

Perhaps he can enlist his Compton collaborator Ice Cube for a big-screen space odyssey. "How about Are We There Yet? The Mars Edition," he jokes."With Neil deGrasse Tyson as a guest star."

Gray and Ice Cube have worked on a number of projects together before Compton. Gray directed the 1995 comedy Friday, starring Ice Cube and Chris Tucker, as well as several videos in which Ice Cube appeared. So the two know what it is like to be in the same orbit.